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If you're not familiar with what's even implied in that question, you might want to check out a piece written by David Sterman, a veteran writer with StreetAuthority.

As Sterman puts it, many young companies come public with unrealistically high expectations, "as sales growth is often front-loaded before the offering (to make the IPO more attractive) and expenses quickly spike after the deal (as the IPO funds start to get deployed into growth initiatives)."

As a result, he writes, shares often swoon before quarterly results improve. "That's the perfect time to catch a young IPO," he adds.

Famous IPOs of recent years like Twitter and Facebook are beyond that stage. While Twitter has clawed its way back to where it was trading when it debuted, Facebook has done much more than that.

StreetAuthority

Sterman cautions that not all IPOs take off immediately. "Some companies need to prove themselves over a series of quarters until investors grow to trust management," he adds. "Yet once these companies build a solid track record, they can build an ever-growing base of shareholders that pushes shares up to fresh highs."

Now that stocks are beginning to fall after months of steady gains, many investors are wondering if the five-year-old bull market will give way to a correction or, even worse, a bear market. In such environments, long/short strategies practiced by hedge funds often have a competitive advantage over long-only investments.

The problem, however, is that only so-called "accredited investors are legally allowed to invest with hedge funds because of the perceived risks," write Rob Copeland and Gregory Zuckerman of The Wall Street Journal. "And even if an investor vaults over this threshold—defined as an individual whose annual income tops $200,000 and whose net worth exceeds $1 million, excluding a primary residence—hedge funds generally charge hefty fees of about 20% of any gains and about 2% of assets annually."

The Wall Street Journal

For investors who either lack the net worth to qualify for hedge funds or for those who simply don't want to pay hedge-fund fees, the article offers up a number of alternatives, such as mutual funds that employ long/short investing strategies.

The article also discusses a new area of hedge-fund-like investing: "Sometimes called "replication" funds and other times "liquid beta," these vehicles try to imitate the performance of hedge-fund benchmarks, much like an exchanged-traded fund tries to produce the results of an underlying index," the article states.

But the article points out one problem for such index-oriented funds: "Most successful wealthy investors look for hedge funds that beat their peers, not match them. And if hedge funds continue to do worse than the overall stock market, investors betting on the broad hedge-fund sector could have regrets," the piece adds

By now, I suspect that most readers of this column are aware that Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of 21st Century Fox (
FOXFOX 1.3914095583787054%21st Century Fox Inc. Cl BU.S.: NasdaqUSD33.52
0.461.3914095583787054%
/Date(1438376400348-0500)/
Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
3538031AFTER HOURSUSD33.517
-0.003-0.008949880668257757%
Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
63583
P/E Ratio
7.868544600938967Market Cap
70187264846.7869
Dividend Yield
0.8949880668257757% Rev. per Employee
1157190More quote details and news »FOXinYour ValueYour ChangeShort position
), has withdrawn Fox's offer to acquire Time Warner. According to various press accounts, Murdoch, who is also executive chairman of News Corp., the parent of this Website, was put off both by Time Warner's apparent hostility to the prospect of a deal and the "response of his own shareholders, who have been driving the price of Fox's stock down since news of the offer broke, fearing he would overpay to secure victory."

As the New York Times put it at the time, "Mr. Murdoch is determined and unlikely to walk away anytime soon, people briefed on the matter said."

Well, it's only been three weeks and Murdoch has walked away—at least for now. In the process, Time Warner's stock has fallen after shooting up in anticipation that the press knew what it was talking about.

It's quite possible that the final chapter has yet to be written on this drama. Still, the turn of events should be a lesson for those who think that mergers-and-acquisitions dramas can be scripted in advance.